I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
By Bobby Sullivan

John 14:18 “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

At some point in our lives we all need to hear these words. They speak to the heart of some of our greatest fears and challenges. Abandonment, isolation. They comfort us to know we are not designed to walk alone without identity and direction.

The Consequences of Fatherlessness

Father absence may well be the most critical social issue of our time. In Fatherless America, David Blankenhorn calls the crisis of fatherless children “the most destructive trend of our generation.” A recent British report from the University of Birmingham, “Dad and Me,” confirms Blankenhorn’s claims, concluding that the need for a father is on an epidemic scale, and “father deficit” should be treated as a public health issue.

Some fathering advocates would say that almost every social ill faced by America’s children is related to fatherlessness.

Children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens.

Parents in general are not supported by our social institutions, divorced fathers in particular are often devalued, disparaged, and forcefully disengaged from their kid’s lives. Researchers have found that for children, the results are nothing short of disastrous. As much as mothers try at no fault of their own, they can’t replace the role of the dad.

Children consistently report feeling abandoned when their fathers are not involved in their lives.

•  Behavioral problems: Fatherless children have more difficulties with social adjustment, and are more likely to report problems with friendships, and manifest behavior problems; many develop aggressive, arrogant and cocky behavior, intimidating persona in an attempt to disguise their underlying fears, resentments, anxieties and unhappiness.
• Skipping school and poor academic performance: 71 per cent of high school dropouts are fatherless; fatherless children have more trouble academically, scoring poorly on tests of reading, mathematics, and thinking skills; children from father-absent homes are more likely to play truant from school, more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to leave school at age 16, and less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications in adulthood.
• Delinquency and youth crime, including violent crime: 85 per cent of youth in prison have an absent father; fatherless children are more likely to offend and go to jail as adults.
• Promiscuity and teen pregnancy: Fatherless children are more likely to experience problems with sexual health, including a greater likelihood of having sex before the age of 16, foregoing contraception becoming teenage parents, and may become susceptible to exploitation by adult men.
• Drug and alcohol abuse: Fatherless children are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and abuse drugs in elementary school.
• Homelessness: 90 per cent of runaway children have an absent father.
• Exploitation and abuse: Fatherless children are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, being five times more likely to have experienced physical abuse and emotional trauma, with a one hundred times higher risk of fatal abuse; a recent study reported that preschoolers not living with both of their biological parents are 40 times more likely to be sexually abused.
• Physical health problems: Fatherless children report significantly more psychosomatic health symptoms and illness such as acute and chronic pain, asthma, headaches, and stomach aches.
• Mental health disorders: Father-absent children are consistently overrepresented on a wide range of mental health problems, particularly anxiety, depression, and suicide.
• Life chances: As adults, fatherless children are more likely to experience unemployment, have low incomes, remain on social assistance, and experience homelessness.
• Future relationships: Father-absent children tend to enter partnerships earlier, are more likely to divorce or dissolve their cohabiting unions, and are more likely to have children outside marriage or outside any partnership.
• Mortality: Fatherless children are more likely to die as children, and live an average of four years less over the life span.

In a nutshell Orphans have a misplaced stolen identity that needs to be rescued and redeemed.

We have to answer the questions, Who are you? Who and what do you identify with?

Where are you? Not location, but position in your relationship with Jesus?

Whether spoken or unspoken the questions begin. What will I do now? Where do I go? What happens next? Who will love, nurture, and guide me? Who stands on my side? What will become of me? Those are the questions orphans ask when love is absent, when trust is violated, and the unknown speaks louder than the roar of a crashing building.

How comfortable are you with love, and even better yet how comfortable are you being loved and showing love?

The answer to this is how comfortable you are with God’s love !!

Over 1000 x the bible refers to God as father. When you acknowledge God as father, he immediately accepts you and affirms you which gives you access.

Psalm 91:1 He who abides in the secret place shall abide under the shadow of the almighty. 

We don’t compete with one another, we complete one another

1 John 4:16 NIV16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Pain always seeks pleasure. They are trying to fill the areas that have not been healed by love.

Identity, Intimacy, Inheritance,

Interesting that 93% of Christians have a view of God that doesn’t look like Jesus.

Whatever overwhelms you shapes you.

Every one of us is guilty of judging a book by its cover without reading the book. We have opinions on one other long before we know the backdrop. We are experts on assumptions which in the end make us look like a donkey.

Why are people defensive and distant when you attempt to get close? I think it is because of an orphan spirit that has latched itself to the memories making you miserable to be around.

I can testify that if anyone probed enough into my past and attempted to look into the hallways of hurt, I immediately went into defense mode, back up against the wall and was ready to turn into a wild raging beast. I built walls of protection as I went into defense mode.

Acts 2:33  “Being Orphans:— therefore lifted high by and to the  right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promised [blessing which is the] Holy Spirit, He has made  this outpouring which you yourselves both  see and hear.” 

No one can effectively function in this life without the blessing.  BLESSED:– (barak) to endue with power for success, prosperity, fruitfulness and longevity. To empower to prosper.

Prodigal Son Story:  Elaborate on the story.  Elder son was not happy when the father restored the youngers son. He could not rejoice in the restoration because he was full of resentment. Both kids had an orphan spirit. One was independent of the father; the other stayed and served because he had an agenda based on selfishness not intimacy.

What does an orphan spirit look like? It is not the homeless rejects of society. It is not someone without a parent! I have dealt with and am dealing with these characteristics of an orphan spirit

1. Spirit of Competition: An orphan that is insecure in their identity and doesn’t know who they are and who they belong to will try to compete with everyone to prove themselves. I was so guilty of this in every area of my life. Perceiving the strengths of others challenges your ego. Secretly taking satisfaction in the weakness of others and viewing them as prey. Rubbing shoulders with the affluential to give you an edge. This spirit craves attention, recognition, affirmation, adoration, rewards, accolades, honor and allegiance. Everything that a father has not given. Nothing seems to fill what was meant for a father to fill.

“Kids have a hole in their soul in the shape of their dad. And if a father is unwilling or unable to fill that role, it can leave a wound that is not easily healed.” — Roland Warren. (CEO Care-Net)

The blessing of our heavenly father is the Holy Spirit. The blessing of our earthly father is affirmation and approval.  Everyone longs for the confidence that can only be bestowed upon by the father. We crave the applause from Dad and always hate the correction! LOL

Sadly, many people don’t understand the blessing and don’t walk in their inheritance. When I fully comprehend what I now have, I realize that my incompleteness is complete in HIM.

God things and good things happen when you are connected to the Father.

Colossians 3:24
Because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

2 Timothy 4:8
From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but to all who crave His appearing.

I want the revelation of inheritance to manifest itself in every aspect of my life. Bring Heaven on earth! I want to live and breathe, in and from that revelation. Lord reveal more of my inheritance.

The most loving thing you can do is say sorry and ask for forgiveness when you fall short.

You are never a distraction or a nuisance.  When you are going through stuff, as your pastors, let us know. Don’t ever feel embarrassed, ashamed for you will NEVER be condemned, ridiculed or looked down upon by us. We are the Parents, the Shepherds, the overseers of the house.

John 3:16-17 “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.”

“For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.”

We need to learn to love without a hook. He loved us when we didn’t love him. His love for the non-believer is greater than their hate towards them.

Ephesians 2:4-5 (AMPC) “But God—so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, Even when we were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; …

… [He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and mercy which you did not deserve) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation).

Matthew 7:11  “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

• Spirit of Isolation is connected to an orphan Spirit: Every orphan wants to belong, be a part of something that resembles a family, click or gang. That’s why gang members, athletes, motorcycle club members and even church people will say, “this is my family”. Love comes in many ways.

The instinct of an orphan is to do things all alone. Man am I guilty of this.

If I am honest, I have been without a father so long that I had to learn to do things on my own. It was very difficult to trust anyone for fear that they would leave and when they left I became resentful. An orphan spirit will hold everything in and try and deal with the issues of life by themselves.

They want to prove themselves by competition but quite often isolate themselves from the very ones they are seeking approval from because they want to be self-made which comes from being self centered. 

If they become successful it has to be from their efforts and works. The attitude of independence drives them and what in the end ultimately kills them without God’s help.

Ephesians 1:5 “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”

The Passion Translation 5–6 For it was always in his perfect plan[a] to adopt[b] us as his delightful children, through our union with Jesus, the Anointed One, so that his tremendous love that cascades over us would glorify his grace[c]—for the same love he has for the Beloved, Jesus, he has for us. And this unfolding plan brings him great pleasure!

1. Third way to can spot an orphan spirit is:

Fear and insecurity; These people are nomads in a desert. They not only feed off independence but prefer isolation in the wilderness. They are not confident in their place in the family and always feel that no matter what they do they don’t measure up.

Their instincts are to protect themselves, their position and possessions.

The Greek word for orphan is fatherless, unprotected and uncovered.

If you have to be recognized for everything you do for God in the Kingdom, you are not doing it for God. You are doing it to satisfy that unquenchable need for affirmation and recognition and reassurance.

If you lack confidence you may be suffering from an orphan spirit. You are not only protective, but you are territorial in your giftings for fear someone will steal it or do better than you. So, you find your greatest competition is yourself. On the outside-you need others applause, yet on the inside the applause will never be enough.

In other words, you are your greatest competition. Nothing is good enough.

Jesus is offering all orphans a home of security, safety and serenity.

Bethesda’s name was House of mercy.

1. Spirit of Performance: Always having to outdo,

How do you overcome this orphan spirit? By doing what you hate! HELP!!

Calling out to God! It is him alone that will give you access and acceptance as you admit your need of his assistance.

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

New King James Version
15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

That spirit will never allow you to live up to your full potential if you’re constantly under its grip holding you captive in a cave of mental isolation, threatening you and strangling you of your very existence.

There is hope! He will turn your mess into a message and your disaster into your desired destiny!

• How Much Happier are you when you receive the Fathers blessing!

Ephesians 1:3 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.

Happy to welcome and embrace you!     Never grumpy or in a bad mood.

Mark 10:14-16 “But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. … And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.”

Psalm 146:9 “The Lord watches over the strangers; he relieves the fatherless and widow

God’s love is perfect not partial. It is divine not divided. It is complete not carnal. HE is ready to restore your value. The mirror will reflect your redemptive restoration value. You will see what Jesus has and can do. HE will turn your nightmares into dreams of destiny. 

2. How Much More Ready

Available to care for you!    Never too engaged to not be there for you. He adopts you with the grace of unlimited chances.

Matthew 10:29-31 “You can buy two sparrows for only a copper coin, yet not even one sparrow falls from its nest without the knowledge of your Father. Aren’t you worth much more to God than many sparrows? So don’t worry. For your Father cares deeply about even the smallest detail of your life.”

3. How Much More Personal

John 5:17  “Everyday MY Father is a working…”

1 John 4:10  (NLT) “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

You are the object of His obsession!

1 John 4:11 (NLT)  “Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.”

(GOD) “Would you help Me to share My love with the fatherless and broken?”

Love is messy!

Psalm 68:5-6 “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families;”

Romans 5:5   “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

NOT ORPHANS … We are blessed to be a blessing. 

We are loved to share the Love of Jesus to Others!!!

Bill Johnson “The farther you go with God the less you can take with you”

I break the spirit of abandonment off my life in Jesus name. I refuse to live with the mindset of an orphan. I decree that I am accepted in the beloved. I am liked and I am loved. I am adopted and brought into the family of God through the complete work of Jesus at the cross. I embrace the work of the cross. I am NOT a slave to sin, fear or abandonment. I am no longer alone. I am no longer lonely. I am free, accepted, loved, complete, healed and whole in Jesus name. I cast out the spirit of abandonment now in the name of Jesus. I break the power of your lies in my life and I command you to go, loose me now in the name of Jesus. Go back to the pit of hell and never return in Jesus name.

We don’t have a darkness problem on the earth. We have a lack of light problem.

Side Notes:

1. Poverty

– Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. Washington D.C.: 2011.

– Children living in female-headed families with no spouse present had a poverty rate of 47.6 percent, over 4 times the rate in married-couple families. Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; ASEP Issue Brief: Information on Poverty and Income Statistics. September 12, 2012 The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”  Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, DC, 1993.

– There is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father.

Source: Hoffmann, John P. “The Community Context of Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use.” Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (May 2002): 314-330.

3. Physical and Emotional Health

– A study of 1,977 children age 3 and older living with a residential father or father figure found that children living with married biological parents had significantly fewer externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems than children living with at least one non-biological parent.

Source: Hofferth, S. L. (2006). Residential father family type and child well-being: investment versus selection. Demography, 43, 53-78. – Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.

Sources: The Lancet, Jan. 25, 2003 • Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, MD, Centre for Epidemiology, the National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden • Irwin Sandler, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University, Tempe • Douglas G. Jacobs, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and founder and director, The National Depression Screening Program • Madelyn Gould, PhD, MPH, professor of child psychiatry and public health, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; and research scientist, New York State Psychiatric Institute.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030123/absent-parent-doubles-child-suicide-risk

– Data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N= 2,111) was used to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ relationship changes between birth and age 3 on their children’s well-being. Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Living in a single-mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions.

Source: Osborne, C., & McLanahan, S. (2007). Partnership instability and child well-being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 1065-1083.

4. Educational Achievement

– Children in grades 7-12 who have lived with at least one biological parent, youth that experienced divorce, separation, or nonunion birth reported lower grade point averages than those who have always lived with both biological parents.
– Children living with their married biological father tested at a significantly higher level than those living with a nonbiological father.

Source: Tillman, K. H. (2007). Family structure pathways and academic disadvantage among adolescents in stepfamilies. Journal of Marriage and Family.

– 71% of high school dropouts are fatherless; fatherless children have more trouble academically, scoring poorly on tests of reading, mathematics, and thinking skills; children from father-absent homes are more likely to be truant from school, more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to leave school at age 16, and less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications in adulthood.

Source: Edward Kruk, Ph.D., “The Vital Importance of Paternal Presence in Children’s Lives.” May 23, 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201205/father-absence-father-deficit-father-hunger

5. Crime

– Adolescents living in intact families are less likely to engage in delinquency than their peers living in non-intact families. Compared to peers in intact families, adolescents in single-parent families and stepfamilies were more likely to engage in delinquency. This relationship appeared to be operating through differences in family processes—parental involvement, supervision, monitoring, and parentchild closeness—between intact and non-intact families.

Source: Stephen Demuth and Susan L. Brown, “Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency: The Significance of Parental Absence Versus Parental Gender,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 41, No. 1 (February 2004): 58-81.
http://familyfacts.org/briefs/26/marriage-and-family-as-deterrents-from-delinquency-violence-and-crime

– A study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health explored the relationship between family structure and risk of violent acts in neighborhoods. The results revealed that if the number of fathers is low in a neighborhood, then there is an increase in acts of teen violence. The statistical data showed that a 1% increase in the proportion of single-parent families in a neighborhood is associated with a 3% increase in an adolescent’s level of violence.

In other words, adolescents who live in neighborhoods with lower proportions of single-parent families and who report higher levels of family integration commit less violence.

Source: Knoester, C., & Hayne, D.A. (2005). “Community context, social integration into family, and youth violence.” Journal of Marriage and Family 67, 767-780.

– Children age 10 to 17 living with two biological or adoptive parents were significantly less likely to experience sexual assault, child maltreatment, other types of major violence, and non-victimization type of adversity, and were less likely to witness violence in their families compared to peers living in single-parent families and stepfamilies.

Source: Heather A. Turner, “The Effect of Lifetime Victimization on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents,” Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 62, No. 1, (January 2006), pp. 13-27.

-A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency.

Source: Bush, Connee, Ronald L. Mullis, and Ann K. Mullis. “Differences in Empathy Between Offender and Nonoffender Youth.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 29 (August 2000): 467-478.

6. Sexual Activityand Teen Pregnancy

– A study using a sample of 1409 rural southern adolescents (851 females and 558 males) aged 11 – 18 years, investigated the correlation between father absence and self-reported sexual activity. The results revealed that adolescents in father-absence homes were more likely to report being sexually active compared to adolescents living with their fathers.

Source: Hendricks, C.S., Cesario, S.K., Murdaugh, C., Gibbons, M.E., Servonsky, E.J., Bobadilla, R.V., Hendricks, D.L., Spencer-Morgan, B., & Tavakoli, A. (2005).

– Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree, and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree.

Source: Teachman, Jay D. “The Childhood Living Arrangements of Children and the Characteristics of Their Marriages.” Journal of Family Issues 25 (January 2004): 86-111